The coliseum had gone silent.
What moments ago had been thunderous cheers and laughter was now smothered by confusion, fear, and the faint echo of a scream that still seemed to linger in the air. The shimmering image on the massive projection screens flickered—showing, for just a heartbeat, the body of a student lying motionless on the glowing platform before the dead boy was teleported away.
For the first time in decades, the audience of the Awakening Exams was witnessing the impossible: a death.
The Overseer, still holding the enchanted microphone that broadcast his voice to millions, stood frozen at the commentary booth high above the arena floor. His smile had faltered, his usual booming tone gone hollow. Assistants around him rushed between control panels and rune screens, panic etched across their faces.
"The shield didn't trigger properly," one technician stammered. "There's… there's no record of a malfunction in the matrix, sir, it's like the barrier just, stopped existing!"
"Check the synchronization field!" another shouted. "Something's interfering with the mana frequencies!"
The Overseer didn't respond at first. His eyes were locked on Platform Three, the one now bathed in chaotic, red-orange light. Through the static and haze, he could still see movement. The boy responsible for the collapse of the safety barrier was standing perfectly still, head bowed, his mana thrashing around him like wildfire. Threads of glowing, razor-sharp filament lashed out in every direction, cutting grooves through the platform's surface.
The Overseer finally lifted the mic, voice tight.
"L–Ladies and gentlemen, it appears we are experiencing a technical issue with one of the arenas. Please remain calm, our barrier integrity teams are investigating as we speak."
But even as he said the words, he knew they were hollow. This wasn't a technical failure. Something else was happening.
He turned to one of his aides, whispering low enough that only those near him could hear.
"Send the medics into standby. Don't teleport anyone yet, whatever's interfering might scramble the coordinates."
Below, the audience shifted uneasily. Some whispered that this must be a special "twist" in the trial. Others began to realize, slowly, that what they'd seen wasn't a staged illusion. A death during a regulated match wasn't just tragic, it was unthinkable.
Platform ThreeElijah stood at the edge of the chaos, his pulse pounding in his ears. The shimmering air felt heavy, the mana thick enough to taste. Students all around him were shouting, some trying to flee, some frozen in horror, but their voices were just noise to him. His attention was locked on the one responsible.
The boy at the center of the arena was trembling violently, eyes unfocused. His hands were twitching, pulling invisible strings in the air. Fine threads, thin as spider silk but glowing with molten light, spread from his fingertips like webbing, tearing into the ground and slicing through the remnants of nearby constructs. The energy coming off him wasn't normal mana; it crackled, warping the air around him.
And beneath that glowing webbing… heat waves. Not just light, flames.
Elijah's danger sense was screaming at him, a rapid pulse beating in the back of his skull. The same new instinct that had saved him against Nysar now blared constantly, like an alarm that wouldn't shut off.
Every nerve in his body told him the same thing: Run.
Students scattered, diving behind cover or pressing against the platform barrier. A few tried attacking, fire bolts, ice shards, even a bolt of compressed air, but each spell was shredded instantly, split apart by the thrashing strings. One unlucky student screamed as a filament whipped across his chest, slicing through his mana shield like it wasn't even there. He vanished in a flash of emergency light—teleported out automatically by the system.
But Elijah noticed something else: the light that carried the wounded student away flickered. The teleport wasn't stable.
He clenched his jaw. "Damn it…"
The berserk boy turned toward a nearby group. His movements were jerky, like a puppet being pulled by too many strings at once. The threads around him tightened, slicing grooves through stone. And then, without even moving his head, he thrust his hand outward. A web of glowing filaments lashed across the ground, cutting through three shields at once.
The sound they made wasn't like that of striking metal or glass, it was a wet, ripping sound. And then the screams began again.
Elijah's stomach turned. This isn't a fight anymore… it's a slaughter.
He crouched behind a broken section of wall, breath shallow, trying to think. His thoughts spiraled.
It's not my problem. I can stay out of it. If I move now, he'll see me. If I just wait, the Overseer will end the trial.
But deep down, he knew the truth. He could see the fear on the others' faces, the way they were too stunned to move. If someone didn't do something soon, that kid was going to kill more people.
He thought of his father. Of long nights spent training with no awakening to show for it. Of the words that had stuck with him all these years:
"Strength means nothing if you only use it for yourself."
Elijah exhaled through his teeth. The fear didn't vanish, but it focused. It sharpened into something he could use.
"…Alright," he muttered under his breath, rolling his shoulders. "Guess I'm doing something stupid again."
Elijah shot his sticky mana lines forward, swinging from one broken pillar to another, landing lightly on the fractured edge of the platform. The berserk boy's head twitched toward him immediately, eyes glowing a feverish red-orange with hints of black starting to creep into them like webs.
The first threads came fast, too fast to dodge normally. But Elijah didn't need sight. His radar-like sense pulsed like a heartbeat, warning him a fraction of a second before each strike. He sidestepped, rolled, and fired a line upward, pulling himself out of reach.
The glowing filaments whipped through the air where he'd been standing, slicing stone in perfect, surgical lines.
Elijah shot another line, grabbing a stunned classmate by the collar and yanking them away from danger. The threads shredded the wall where the student had been crouched a second ago. The boy he saved stared up at him in disbelief, but Elijah didn't stay long enough for thanks, he was already moving again.
The berserk student shrieked, a sound somewhere between rage and pain, and slammed his hands down. Threads erupted from the ground in a burst, forming a shimmering lattice around him. The ground split, glowing with red-hot cracks. The strings were beginning to burn, small tongues of black tinged flame licking along their length. His entire body seemed to shimmer with heat.
Elijah dropped low, sticking his hand to the ground to stabilize himself. He felt the vibrations through the stone, the threads weren't just cutting, they were melting the mana barriers around them.
"What the hell…? His ability's evolving," Elijah breathed, eyes narrowing. "No, not evolving… it's, mixing? But mixing with what though? How? People can only have one ability."
He didn't have time to think further. One of the glowing strings lashed straight at him. He swung upward on instinct, but the attack clipped his leg midair. His mana shield flared, cracked, and shattered. Agony lanced up his thigh.
He landed hard, sliding across the cracked ground. "Tch… not good."
The berserk student turned toward him fully now, the last remnants of awareness fading from his eyes. The threads around his arms began to gather, hundreds of them converging into a single, blazing whip of now nearly completely black fire.
Elijah's breath hitched. Every instinct screamed move now!
He fired his sticky line to the side, swinging desperately. The whip struck behind him, vaporizing stone and leaving a molten crater. The blast of heat seared across his back, even through the shield.
He coughed, eyes stinging from the smoke. "This guy's, this guy's not even human right now…"
The Overseer's voice echoed distantly over the comm system, broken by static:
"Platform Three, hold your ground! Emergency units are…" crkkk! "…mana interference…unstable…!"
Elijah grimaced. "So much for help…"
He crouched behind a melted column, trying to think. The boy wasn't thinking tactically just reacting. That was his only weakness. If Elijah could bait him, maybe he could find an opening. But one mistake, one misread, and he'd die like the others.
He closed his eyes for half a second, steadying his breathing. His danger sense pulsed faintly, erratic, jittery. He could feel the berserk student's movements before they happened, but they were unpredictable, chaotic. Still… it was something.
When he opened his eyes again, the fear was still there, but it no longer ruled him.
He pressed his palms together, sticky mana coating his fingers like shimmering light.
"Alright, let's see what I can do…"
Elijah vaulted out from behind cover, swinging low this time. He fired a line straight at the berserk student's shoulder, and it hit, sticking tight. The connection flared with mana feedback. For an instant, Elijah felt the other boy's mana flow: boiling, unstable, screaming for release. It felt wrong, like touching a live wire.
"Got you!" Elijah began, but the feedback hit too fast. The line shattered, and the backlash threw him backward into a wall. His vision blurred as blood trickled down his lip.
The berserk student raised his arm again, flames coiling around the glowing threads like serpents.
This time, Elijah knew, if he missed the next move, he was dead.
And just as the burning threads lashed out with an attack Elijah could not dodge in time, the light on the platform dimmed.
A shadow passed over him.
Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw movement, darkness folding in on itself, a familiar figure stepping silently from it as Elijah noticed his surroundings had shifted slightly just before the attack would have hit him square in the chest.
"You're an idiot for staying," Nysar said flatly, his voice like calm amid the chaos. His shadowy aura writhed faintly, ready to strike.
Elijah gave a breathless laugh, still catching his balance. "Guess that makes two of us."
The berserk student turned toward them both, the heat building to unbearable levels.
Two students now stood against him, standing side by side.
And the real fight was about to begin.
The audience could still see everything.
The feed from Platform Three filled every screen in the coliseum and across the city. People were glued to the sight, students bleeding, barriers flickering, and one boy at the center of it all, wrapped in glowing filaments and fire. The berserk student's movements were erratic but devastating. Every lash of those molten strings carved another gash through the stone, every wave of heat warped the air until the picture itself shimmered.
Parents watching from home covered their mouths.
Commentators had stopped speaking entirely.
Even the Overseer had gone silent, his hand hovering above the emergency halt rune. He knew he should end the trial, but his mana sense screamed warning. If he disrupted the mana flow of that platform now, it could cause a surge that would kill everyone standing on it.
So he waited. Watched. Calculated.
And below, the impossible continued to unfold.
The berserk student's burning whip cracked forward, screaming through the air. Elijah barely had time to see it before a wave of black swallowed his vision. He gasped, the world turned cold again, and in the blink of an eye, he was somewhere else.
The air shifted. He stumbled, nearly falling, but landed behind a fractured pillar several meters away. The molten whip carved through where he'd been standing a heartbeat earlier, leaving nothing but liquid stone.
A low voice came from the darkness behind him.
"You really do have a death wish, don't you? Keep your head in the game. I can't save you like that many more times."
Elijah looked over his shoulder. Nysar stepped out from the shadows like smoke, crimson eyes glinting faintly in the dim. The arena lights flickered against the moving tendrils of darkness that coiled lazily at his feet, ready to strike.
The ground shook violently as another crack split the platform. Mana surged like an angry sea. Both boys turned to face the berserk student as he screamed, a sound that didn't even sound human anymore.
Nysar was the first to move. Shadows stretched out from under his feet, splitting like living tendrils, racing across the ground. The berserk student swung his molten filaments to intercept, but the moment the threads cut into the darkness, they stuck, slowing just enough for Nysar to vanish and reappear behind him.
From the stands, the audience gasped as his form rippled between pools of shadow like a mirage, each reappearance punctuated by a flash of crimson light.
He drove a dagger of condensed shadow into the berserk student's back, but instead of piercing flesh, it met a solid wall of molten resistance. The string-user whipped his arm backward, and Nysar barely blinked out of sight before the counterattack vaporized the ground.
Elijah swung in next, using his sticky lines to slingshot himself low along the ground. His danger sense buzzed like static, warning him of each movement before it came. He fired one line forward, miss, then two more, caught. The sticky threads latched onto the berserk student's shoulder and side. Elijah yanked hard, spinning his momentum into a full-body kick enhanced with mana.
The hit connected, just barely, but it sent the berserk student stumbling half a step. That was all they got.
"He's hardening his mana field!" Elijah shouted over the roar of energy. "His threads, they're acting like armor!"
Nysar reappeared beside him, panting. "Then we cut through it."
"How? Your shadows can't grab heat, and my sticky lines can barely hold him!"
Nysar smirked, a rare, sharp thing. "Then we improvise."
Elijah crouched low, feeling the hum of his mana pulsing in his limbs. His sticky lines flickered in faint blue arcs, and for the first time, he noticed something, tiny sparks running along the lines of mana. The same sparks that had appeared when his danger sense awakened. The electricity wasn't random. It was reacting.
He remembered the moment during the Ryden fight, the static that had filled the air before he moved. He remembered how he could feel the electric pulses in other people's bodies, almost see them through the air when his danger sense triggered. Maybe… maybe he could use that.
"Cover me," he told Nysar suddenly.
Nysar blinked. "What…?"
"Just do it!"
Before Nysar could argue, Elijah fired two lines into the ground, pulling himself forward like a slingshot. The berserk student's head whipped toward him instantly, and the molten threads screamed forward. Nysar cursed under his breath but obeyed, his shadows surged, erupting upward like waves, intercepting the glowing filaments. Each collision produced a violent hiss, shadow meeting fire, dark mana burned away but still slowing the strike.
Elijah's radar flared. One string from the left. Two from above. Three from behind. He twisted, slid under the first, dodged the second, then launched himself upward with a powerful kick that cracked the stone beneath him.
He fired a sticky line midair, grabbing onto one of the glowing filaments itself. The heat nearly burned through it instantly, but in that brief moment, Elijah poured his mana into the connection. His sticky mana clung harder, adapting, changing, its blue glow sparking white-hot for a split second.
The berserk student froze, his threads suddenly jerking off-balance. Elijah could feel it, the unstable mana, pulsing through the strings, like electricity running through copper. His own power began syncing to that rhythm, and for a heartbeat, it was as if he could feel every motion of his enemy.
"Now!" Elijah shouted.
Nysar didn't hesitate. His shadow exploded outward, coiling up the berserk student's legs, anchoring him in place. The darkness hissed as it met molten heat, but it held, barely.
Elijah dove in, releasing his line and spinning through the air. His gauntlet crackled with electricity as he poured every drop of mana into it, feeling it surge to the edge of control.
He slammed his fist into the berserk student's chest.
The explosion of mana knocked both of them backward, flames, shadows, and static bursting outward in a storm of energy. The audience gasped as the entire platform flashed white-blue, then settled into silence.
Smoke and sparks filled the air.
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then, slowly, the smoke cleared.
The berserk student was on his knees, the molten glow fading from his skin. His strings drooped and evaporated one by one, leaving behind only scorch marks. His body trembled violently, mana leaking off him like steam, and then he slumped forward, unconscious but alive.
Elijah sat slumped against a wall, breathing raggedly, his hair singed, clothes scorched. His gauntlet was cracked and smoking. Across from him, Nysar leaned against a broken pillar, just as battered, shadows fading from his arms like mist dispersing at dawn.
The Overseer's voice boomed across the arena, half disbelieving, half awed.
"Platform Three… the berserk combatant has been subdued. Emergency medical units, prepare teleport. Containment teams, NOW."
The crowd erupted in noise, a tidal wave of voices, gasps, and cheers. For a moment, it was chaos. Some cried out in horror at what they'd just witnessed; others shouted in amazement that two students had managed to take down something that had killed another.
Every screen across the coliseum replayed the final blow in slow motion, Elijah's glowing line connecting to the berserk student's shoulder, the surge of lightning that had coursed through him, and the twin figure of shadow appearing behind him to bind him in place.
In the VIP viewing booths, reactions varied wildly.
"That kid, what's his name? Elijah?…he resonated," muttered a scarred man in a mercenary guild uniform, leaning forward. "That wasn't normal coordination. That was instinct."
A military officer beside him frowned deeply. "Resonance shouldn't even be possible without full training. You're saying those two just did it on the fly?"
Across the aisle, a woman with a high-ranking Guild insignia whispered into her comm. "Pull all available data on both of them. Especially the one with the static."
Meanwhile, the Overseer still stood frozen in his booth. He could feel the mana distortion still lingering in the air, whatever had triggered that boy's rampage wasn't natural. Two different mana signatures had fused inside him. That was not just forbidden, it was impossible.
And yet… the system logs showed no record of interference.
His jaw tightened. "Echo Project…? Have they finally made their move…?"
He cut the thought short and leaned back to the mic.
"Platform Three has concluded. Containment stable. Medical wards en route. We will let the other platforms finish their fights but the remaining trials are postponed until further notice."
On the fractured platform, Elijah finally managed to push himself upright. His limbs shook, every muscle screaming in protest. He looked over to where Nysar stood, half hidden in shadow.
"You could've… let me die," Elijah said between breaths.
Nysar smirked faintly, though his eyes were tired. "You're too loud to die quietly."
Elijah barked a weak laugh, wincing at the motion. "I'll… take that as a compliment."
Nysar's expression softened for a brief second. "You fought well."
"So did you."
They sat in silence for a moment, the sounds of approaching teleport runes beginning to hum around them. Then the Overseer's containment barrier activated, a shimmer of blue light enclosing the platform as medics appeared.
Just before they were teleported out, Elijah glanced one last time at the unconscious boy in the center. His aura was still flickering, unstable, dangerous, but there was something haunting about it. Two colors of mana twisted and fought within him, one tied to his normal ability, one of something else, something raw, hot, and unfamiliar.
Elijah didn't understand what he'd just seen.
But deep down, something told him this wasn't the end of it.
As the teleport light engulfed him, he muttered softly under his breath:
"…What the hell are they doing to us?"
And then he was gone, leaving behind a platform of scorched stone, silence, and the faint smell of burnt ozone.